The Massachusetts Center for Advancing Cancer Control Engaged Research Through Transformative Solutions (Mass-ACCERT) - ABSTRACT The Massachusetts Center for Advancing Cancer Control Engaged Research Through Transformative Solutions (Mass-ACCERT) builds on a robust partnership between the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers, and Mass General Brigham. The proposed Center is well-poised to further accelerate community-academic collaborations to advance transformative solutions for improving cancer prevention and control outcomes. Our Center’s theme is advancing cancer prevention and control outcomes by strengthening community health center’s (CHC) capacity to deliver evidence-based cancer screening and tobacco treatment and by promoting social and digital connection among patients and their communities. Advancing cancer control will result from CHC systems that deliver evidence-based care together with community organizations that support community needs. The Partnership has selected four local priorities as SDOH targets: (1) social capital, which reflect the resources embedded within social connections; (2) civic engagement, or the actions that a community takes to improve its circumstances; (3) access to digital skills and technology (here forward referred to as “digital access”), which impacts access to health care and social resources that support health; and (4) access to evidence-based cancer control care for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening and tobacco treatment, reflecting Healthy People 2030 objectives. We will conduct a multi-level intervention at 2 levels— the community level to build community social capital and civic participation, enabling engagement that will improve resident access to health and economic resources, and the systems level to improve cancer control care (e.g. cancer screening and tobacco treatment) and digital access, by digital needs screening and navigation to needed resources. To support the Center’s goals and planned research, we will: (1) create a community-partnered approach to conducting research and building both community and CHC capacity to address key SDOH through a strong Admin Core; (2) create a process for developing and sustaining research that is responsive to community interests through our Community Responsive Project (CRP) Program; and (3) create an innovative, centralized approach for efficient collection, management, and sharing of research data across the Center through a data ecosystem, and supporting the methodologic needs of the Center through a Research Methods, Measurement, and Data Management Core. This is a highly integrated Center with a strong emphasis on capacity building for all partners. We aim to link CHCs and communities in ways that maximize civic engagement and participation in cancer control research and care, using approaches that are scalable and sustainable across MA and nationally.
